Wasted Glory: The BR Standard 9F 2-10-0s
Pete Kelly considers the all-toobrief life and times of the 9Fs as he anticipates Hornby's fully retooled OO-scale versions of these magnificent locomotives.
Pete Kelly considers the all-too-brief life and times of the BR Standard 9F 2-10-0s as he anticipates Hornby's fully re-tooled OO-scale versions of these magnificent locomotives that promise to be the best yet.
BUILT at Crewe and Swindon, the BR Standard 9F 2-10-0s were designed to move heavy freight trains as speedily and efficiently as possible, and were among the most powerful steam locomotives ever to run on Britain's railways – often far surpassing everything that was expected of them.
Designed under Robert Riddles in 1951, the first 9F didn't emerge from Crewe Works until 1954 because British Railways inherited such a large number of powerful freight locomotives upon its formation on January 1, 1948, many of them having been built for the war effort.
These included more than 660 Stanier 8F 2-8-0s, 770 WD 2-8-0s and 25 WD 2-10-0s, the latter of which were also Riddles designs.
Conceived with a life expectancy of up to 30 years, the 9Fs (198 built at Crewe between 1954 and 1958 and 53 at Swindon between 1959 and 1960) were withdrawn between 1964 and 1968, the last handful just a month before the final day of steam on British Railways in August 1968.
It was a massive waste, and many still ask what went wrong? The root of the problem lay in differing views between the British Transport Commission (BTC) and the British Railways Board during the very early years of Nationalisation.
The Transport Commission wanted all existing steam locomotives to be replaced by diesel and electric traction as quickly as possible but the BR Board, preferring a straight switch from steam power to electrification, which would have extended the life of steam by at least a decade, went against the will of the BTC and ordered a full range of standard steam classes.
Overtaken by events
By the time the BR Modernisation Plan was published in January 1955, opinions had veered towards the diesel and electric solution, but this led to the appearance of a diverse range of such classes that were anything but standard. Many did not live up to their promise and lasted for just a few short years, while the planned lifespan of the Western Region's entire diesel-hydraulic vision was also cut short.
Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing, and if the all-too-short lifespan of the 9Fs had been known right at the beginning (their construction was proposed by the Eastern Region's Motive Power Officer on the grounds of the amount of work footplate crews would be able to squeeze from them in a single shift), then surely everything might have been left to the still-capable locomotives that already existed.
I was just 10 years old when the first BR Standard 9F 2-10-0 was built in 1954 and didn't see any of them until they started to replace older goods engines I was familiar with on local lines, including Robinson O4 2-8-0s and ‘Super D' 0-8-0s. Like all goods engines, the 9Fs soon took on a really grubby appearance that always seemed at odds with their sheer magnificence.
The 9Fs' achievements were many and legendary. Not only could they keep time on trains designed for full-blown express passenger locomotives and lift very heavy trains of 56-ton ore hoppers along the steeply-graded line from Tyne Dock to the Consett Iron Company in County Durham, but they could also reach undreamed-of speeds despite their long wheelbase and 5ft diameter driving wheels. Certainly a timed speed of 90mph could never have been envisaged when the locomotives were designed, and operators concerned about the effect such a high rotational speed must have had on running gear and bearings quickly acted to ‘cool it'.
Are there any mathematicians out there who can work out how many times per second the driving wheels would have been going round at that speed, and compare it with the 6ft 8in driving wheels of Mallard at 126mph?
Heavy haulage
At the other extreme, in 1982 preserved 9F No. 92203 Black Prince achieved a British steam traction record by moving a stone train of well over 2100 tonnes at a Foster Yeoman quarry, and such was the adhesion afforded by five coupled driving wheels that it took a considerable distance before wheelslip finally brought it to a stand.
The 9Fs put in some fine work in the latter years of the Somerset & Dorset line, too, and as one of our archive photos shows,
No. 92220 Evening Star was
chosen to head the final down ‘Pines Express' on September 8, 1962.
Although Riddles' initial idea had been a 2-8-2 (or Mikado) based on the ‘Britannia' boiler and firebox, in view of his wartime experience with the WD 2-10-0s he finally plumped for a 2-10-0 in the interests of achieving the maximum possible traction with an equally-distributed axle load of just 15½ tons – but this was nothing like as simple as it sounded.
The positioning of the final pair of driving wheels forced a higher mounting of the firegrate than might have been desired, and to enable the locomotives to negotiate tightradius curves without squealing flanges and track spread, the centre driving wheels were flangeless, and the second and fourth pairs had shallower flanges.
Throughout the 9Fs' construction history, various experimental fittings were tried out in the pursuit of efficiency and economy, yet the most beneficial of all was possibly the simplest – the fitting of a double blastpipe and chimney to No. 92178 during construction at Swindon.
The testing that followed gave such immediate good results that the rest of the Swindon-built locomotives from No. 92183 featured this modification from new, and a small number of earlier 9Fs were similarly improved.
Modifications
While Nos. 92020-29, the 10 Crewebuilt Crosti-boilered examples, made an impressive and unusual sight, the benefits of the complex water preheater arrangement proved minimal in terms of cost efficiency. Another problem in certain weather conditions was smoke drift from the side chimney that came out in front of the firebox on the right-hand side of the locomotive, despite efforts to deflect it. In the end the pre-heater drums were removed but the ‘Crostis' kept their distinctly-styled smokeboxes until the end.
Crewe-built 9Fs Nos. 92165-7 were fitted with mechanical stokers, but
even these were removed after a while because, performance-wise, the results were no better than could be achieved by traditional handfiring. Too much coal can, of course, be detrimental to higher steam pressure and a well-known LMS training film noted that the secret was rather a little and often, with a light grey plume from the chimney indicating ‘just right'.
Looking at the scant years in BR service that the nine remaining 9Fs achieved makes sobering reading: No. 92134, nine years and six months; 92203 Black Prince, eight years and seven months; 92207, five years and six months; 92212, eight years and four months; 92214 Leicester City, five years and 11 months; 92219, five years and eight months; 92220 Evening Star, five years; 92240, six years and 11 months; and 92245, six years and one month.
The models
Earlier CAD examples did not do justice to images of Hornby's forthcoming retooled OO-scale models of the 9F 2-10-0s in terms of detail, but these three 3D renders certainly do!
When designing the new 9Fs, it was important that Hornby incorporate as many tooling inserts as necessary to cater for future variants, including various ATC/AWS set-ups, early and late ashpans and a plethora of regional variations, and, of course, not forgetting those tender options!
This stereo 3D-printed sample of a generic 9F was produced to check that the overall proportions looked right in its intended scale. There are many missing features, such as smoke deflectors, steps and handrails, along with other intricacies not needed at this stage.
As the newly-built 9Fs emerged from Crewe and Swindon Works in various batches, they were fitted with the BR Standard tender types that had been specified by the regions to which they were delivered.
These comprised BR1B, BR1C, BR1F, BR1G and BR1K types, and perfectionist modellers will always insist on getting the particular pairings just right.
That's why leading model-making firms are allowing for more and more options at the tooling stage, and Hornby is no exception.
Although it still offers OO-scale 9Fs in its Railroad range, its entirely newly-tooled versions expected in the fourth quarter of this year are something else entirely.
OO-scale models of the 9F 2-10-0s are currently produced by both Bachmann and Hornby Railroad, and in 2009 Dapol was commissioned to produce an N-gauge model of No. 92203 for TMC, but the forthcoming Hornby products will appear initially in three versions with a recommended retail price of around £189.
■ R3986: No. 92167 in BR black with DCC-ready eight-pin socket and five-pole skew-wound motor. This locomotive was built at Crewe with a mechanical stoker in 1958, and also received a double blastpipe and chimney. Its first depot when it entered service at the end of March was Saltley (21A), but in March 1962 it was moved to Tyne Dock (52H) and then to Bidston (6F) before the end of the year. In early 1963 its penultimate shed was Birkenhead Mollington Street (6C), where it remained until finally allocated to Carnforth (10A) in 1967. It was one of the last 9Fs to be withdrawn in mid-1968.
■ R3987: No. 92194 in BR black with DCC-ready eight-pin socket and five-pole skew-wound motor. Built at Swindon for use on the Eastern Region in 1958, No. 92194 was allocated initially to Doncaster (36A), where it spent around eight months until February 1959, when Immingham (40B) became its home for the rest of its life. It was withdrawn at the end of 1965 after just seven-and-a-half years in service.
■ R3988: No. 92220 Evening Star in BR lined green with DCC-ready eight-pin socket and five-pole skew-wound motor. The last steam locomotive to be built for British Railways and the 999th BR Standard of any type, it was the only 9F to be named by BR, after a competition in the Western Region's staff magazine. After being withdrawn in 1965, it was stored at the Severn Tunnel Junction marshalling yard after suffering minor damage in a shunting incident at Cardiff Docks. No. 92220 became part of the National Collection and is currently on display at the National Railway Museum in York. The model depicts the locomotive on withdrawal.